


Red Strings Tangled

by writingramblr



Category: Timeless (2016 TV Show)
Genre: Alternate History, F/M, Time Travel, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, death and the maiden dynamics, idk - Freeform, predictions for canon, timeless tv show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8214052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/writingramblr
Summary: Chasing a mad man across time is probably one of the things lowest on Lucy's to-do list, but for mysterious reasons, she's been dragged into the adventure and the mission, needed for her historical expertise, she finds herself in a strange game of cat and mouse with the exact person she and her fellow team members are trying to stop.





	1. Who is He & Why Does He Run

**Author's Note:**

> yeah this show just started and already i love it sign me the fuck up for some heroine/villain dynamics. fuck.

He towers over her, and he has a gun, but he’s not aiming it at her.

“Listen to me, you are not going to beat me Lucy. You must understand this. I am three steps ahead of you at all times.”

Things got a little hazy after Wyatt shot him, and she was thrown to the ground.

Then the trip back scrambled her brain even more it seemed. But the entire journey, all she was thinking was, why did he not hurt her? How did he know her? Where did he get that journal in her handwriting?

More importantly, when?

*

Her mother was out of bed, walking around like everything was fine in the world, but everything was _not._

Amy was gone. As if she’d never existed.

There was some fiancé who would not exist in Lucy’s mind, and did he even matter? She was too busy to consider sharing her life with anyone. First it had been while trying to get tenure, now she was trying to save the world.

Threw things into perspective, a little.

The next trip was a bit closer to World War Two than Lucy would have liked, and wouldn’t it just be typical if they ran into Flynn dressed up as a Nazi.

He wasn’t.

But he was wearing a suit, and he looked as if he fit right in. No more strange looks when the trio held out his photo, no more pajama remarks.

He was getting better at the travelling.

Lucy couldn’t help wondering how long he’d been doing it, if the people they worked for were avoiding her questions, maybe he’d once worked for them too, and something had gone terribly wrong.

She’d wanted to ask him without blurting it out so bluntly, so when she found herself dancing with him, utter madness, she asked again.

“What happened to your family?”

He frowned, and his dark hair had begun to slip out of the perfect style, probably from nervous sweating.

“None of your business. Now Lucy, don’t get in my way again.”

He didn’t quite push her aside as spin her, with a nudge of his hand, right into Wyatt’s arms, and surprised slack jaw expression.

But Lucy was just watching Flynn melt away into the crowd.

“Lucy, are you all right?”

Rufus was asking, and she nodded numbly before she could say anything, mind still racing, and her hip burning from where Flynn’s hand had been.

*

Then it was at the height of the Cold War, and heels were coming into vogue, as well as the illusion of more equality, at least for some, and Rufus no longer was as apprehensive. Wyatt handed him a gun, and told him not to be afraid to use it if they saw Flynn again. There could be no more mistakes.

Lucy felt the icy fingers of dread creeping over her spine, and Amy was what could have been called a mistake, yet still, her memories of her no longer existing sister remained.

She wasn’t completely erased from history.

Flynn appeared, of course, but that time, Lucy had been sent to find a historical figure that could possibly help them. After all she’d once spoken to a young Roosevelt himself.

“Lucy!”

She hadn’t meant to scream, but it was the natural reaction when seeing him, she supposed. It was far too late, he’d already grabbed her, and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Stop that. I need you to listen to me, very carefully. I can help you, but one day, you are going to help me.”

She almost stopped breathing at that revelation, and she was suddenly very aware of how close they were standing.

He was slowly letting go of her, his hand somewhat caressing her cheek before leaving her face completely, and as she spun around to face him, she was trying to put as much space between them as she dared. He still had a gun. They might as well have been dancing again, but there was no music.

“Why would I ever do that?”

Flynn almost looked sad, or at least somewhat regretful,

“I can’t tell you. But you better go. Your friends will be looking for you at the rendezvous point.”

Lucy bit her tongue to keep from asking how he knew about that, but of course, it had to be the diary, the diary he took everywhere, that she hadn’t yet written.

Again, she watches him leave, disappear almost into a cloud of smoke, as she walks away, and her neck is hurting from how often she glances back, until…he’s gone.

*

Will this be how they are?

Forever dancing around each other?

Never stopping the other, and never getting any real answers?

Lucy hopes not.

She _needs_ to know the truth, and even if it might jeopardize her future, if it will help her get Amy back, she’ll do anything.

Anything.

*

 

 


	2. Finally, the Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edited:11/15 for canon updates

Flirted at by Abraham Lincoln’s son? Okay.

Hit on by the writer of the ultimate ladies man of the Queen's England? No problem.

Learning that Flynn was actually on the same side as her, and the time travel corporation could be against everything they pretended to stand for? Hell no.

Lucy was still reeling from the revelation, and she still needed answers. Flynn wasn’t forthcoming on anything but the most cryptic of hints.

“It’s for the best this way, Lucy you know what happens when time is meddled with. You’ve experienced it first hand, as have I. An entire lifetime I knew as my world, gone in a handful of seconds.”

As she had watched him, standing close as she dared in an abandoned alleyway in the quiet German town, hours away from Hitler’s inauguration, his eyes had almost looked pained, and if she hadn’t known better, she swore she saw a gleam of sadness, as if he wanted to cry, but simply didn’t have reserves left.

She knew that feeling well enough. Losing Amy had been the single hardest blow she’d ever experienced, and she’d been punched in the stomach in self defense class a few years back.

“So you didn’t kill them…not directly.”

Flynn sighed, and his entire body seemed to slump in defeat, though he still towered over her,

“Of course not.”

Lucy persisted,

“But you have killed people, all in the name of your vendetta against, uh,”

He shook his head quickly,

“Best not say that name around here. Rumor has it that they originated right here, in this town. Why do you think I’ve come here? Not for the man himself, but for the creator of the group.”

Lucy blinked, wide eyed,

“What do you think is going to happen? The ripple effect could be catastrophic, and there would be a paradox. If the group never exists, you never have to travel, neither does my team. You never get my diary to help you…”

She fell silent, as the sheer amount of impossibilities began to slide into place.

Flynn shook his head again,

“No Lucy, it will create a stable time loop. Everything will heal itself, like a blade wound mending itself. The rip in time will be fixed. Everything will be as it should be.”

Lucy met his gaze again, intense as it was,

“Are you sure?”

There was something new in his eyes now. Not sadness or despair, but determination.

“Yes. You have to trust me Lucy. I know what I’m doing.”

The diary.

It must have assurances or facts to back up his theories…unless…

“Have you… done this before?”

She finally asked, the words falling from her mouth like grains of sand through her fingers. Slowly, then all at once.

At that, he looked away from her, and back towards the mouth of the alleyway, where darkness still reigned.

Half the city was asleep, the other half wide awake unable to sleep, preparing for the biggest event in their history…so far.

“Lucy… I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

“I’m asking you how you got that diary…because we’ve met before…haven’t we? But in another timeline…one that you brought that back from. I know, because my locket…still has a picture of me and my sister, who no longer exists in this lifetime.”

Her eyes stung with tears suddenly, and Flynn blurred before her, so that she didn’t see his hand before it met her cheek, cupping it softly, as his thumb brushed away the first icy tear that fell.

“Oh Lucy…my brave beautiful Lucy, you have no idea how many years I’ve spent trying to get back to you, to a place where you still lived. It’s probably aged me far too much. But we were once the same age, or closer, and we knew each other…quite well.”

Lucy tried to swallow past the painful lump in her throat, as the man before her finally confirmed what she’d been suspecting for the last two missions.

They were not meeting for the first time, or even the second.

But she had no memory of him before this entire fiasco had begun.

“What are you saying?”

It was a stupid question, but her mind was already racing, throwing two and two together and coming up with three, the three of them, and what it all meant.

His wife and child.

 _Their_ child.

His hand dropped from her face, but only so that he could grasp at her neck, more gently than anyone had ever, and she would never let a man touch her, not since finding out she had a fiancé she didn’t know, and Flynn had nearly killed her once or twice.

But she let him.

He drew her closer, and she went.

“Lucy…you were my wife.”

Her eyes flitted back and forth between his own and his mouth, suddenly only a few inches away, and she knew what would happen next.

What she didn’t expect was how it would feel.

Like thousands of atoms colliding and sparking with a kilo-ton of power, like warm and comfortable, _familiar._

He only kissed her for a handful of seconds, but it felt like a small eternity. When he pulled back, and drew a deep breath, she was still trying to regain her bearings.

“You have no idea how painful it was to lose you, over and over, trying to fight the organization, and then, to be accused of killing you myself? And…our daughter. I became angry, and all I wanted was to find a way back to you. It didn’t matter how.”

He watched her now, as if afraid she might cut and run from the truth, find it too difficult to believe, or simply flat out accuse him of lying. And yet, she could feel it, deep down, inside of her very being, that he was telling the truth.

Finally, after nearly a half dozen stomach lurching and brain squeezing trips to the past and further, there were no vague hints to be hidden behind.

It was all out there in the open.

“What happens now?”

Lucy finally asked, and Flynn inhaled a shaky breath,

“You must return to your team, and you cannot tell them anything yet. There is still much to be done. We are so close to finishing it. To ending this, and returning things to the way they should be.”

Lucy couldn’t help herself,

“What if I still forget you? Wouldn’t that be part of the time tears healing themselves? Erasing this?”

 Flynn shrugged,

“It doesn’t matter to me. As long as you are safe, with or without me, it will be right.”

Lucy opened her mouth to protest, but Flynn stopped her, a gentle finger pressed to her lips,

“No. Don’t. If it will still be meant to be, I will always find you. Know this, and just remember, I love you, forever.”

He stepped away from her, and glanced back to the alleyway mouth, and then nodded,

“You’d better go. Your team is waiting.”

Lucy gulped, and then began walking.

Away from her past, and her future all in one.

But she couldn’t help looking back at him, just before turning the corner, and the way he was watching her, nearly broke her.

He looked as if they had already lost.

*

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha oops im a sap
> 
> this is all speculation dont take it #srs  
> xoxo

**Author's Note:**

> fuck tenses BECAUSE TIME TRAVEL LMAO.
> 
> but seriously i need help for if they cancel this show i will die. but i highly suspect they will.  
> just me keeping it real.


End file.
